"For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow."Ecclesiastes 1:18
Lately most sermons seem to depress me. I don't know if it's the content, or the tone. Maybe it's just the format of a sermon--a guy gets up there and talks about what he wants to tell you about a passage for a while, and you get to sit and figure out how that's supposed to fix your life.
This morning I heard a very evangelical sermon on the good news of how there really is a point to life after all, and sure enough, it's to fear God, and keep His commandments. (The text was Psalm 25.)
Somehow this message reminded me of all those people who say religion is a crutch--"whatever gets you through the night" and all that. People need meaning in their lives. The sermon this morning was basically about how you find that as a Christian.
Those who claim not to need a crutch find meaning for themselves. They say there's no real meaning to the universe, but the meaning we create is good enough. We just have to brave enough to accept that that's all there is.
The Christian counters by saying that we have to be humble enough to accept the meaning that is there.
It's a cruel dilemma, don't you think? Do you take up a crutch out of humility or do you embrace the absurd out of courage? Both humility and courage are good, but both weakness and absurdity are evil, are they not?
I think I hear voices telling me, oh, but it doesn't matter what's more courageous or more humble, does it? What's important is which belief is true.
But let's get real, here. Who believes anything about God or the meaning of life without evaluating it using some moral compass? We all want to know what's good, not just what's "fact."
Sometimes, though, it seems like what's good is just wishful thinking, and what's true is depressing.
After all, no matter how joyful a Christian may be that one day Jesus will come again, the fact is, he hasn't so far, and it's been 2000 years. There has been a lot of destruction and evil in that time. How can you avoid feeling some bitterness?
And no matter how certain an atheist might be that life is worth living only for the meaning we create, the fact is that if there is no transcendent meaning, then life is still a joke after all. How can you avoid getting depressed?
The Greek philosophers had this triad they liked to talk about--truth, beauty, and the good. But what happens when in the real world these three are torn apart from one another? We all want them to be the same, but they're not. Not now.
So what can I do with all the knowledge I've gained about just how far from good life really is? What do I do when there don't seem to be any answers--when all the good answers seem false, and all the true answers seem evil?
Somehow the image of Jesus stretched out on his cross comes to mind.
The mind craves harmony between truth, beauty, and goodness. If that harmony isn't there, what else can the mind do other than take up its cross and follow Jesus? It must stretch out its left hand toward the good, and its right toward the truth, and nail itself firmly in place.
Then it must bear the crucifixion--that horrifying tension between what we hope for and what we see.
Sorry this is so long, but G.K. Chesterton says:
ReplyDelete"As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say "if you please" to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers."
Wow, I need to start reading Chesterton.
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